HEROIN CLINICAL TRIAL GETS MPS' SUPPORT

Hedy Fry, Libby Davies Say Harm Reduction Key

A clinical trial to provide heroin to users, pilot safe-injection sites and
the conversion of two federal jails to treatment centres were among
ground-breaking ideas supported Monday by an all-party parliamentary
committee studying ways to tackle drug abuse.

"We're looking for a national drug strategy that fits across the country,"
MP Randy White said at a news conference in Vancouver held jointly with MPs
Hedy Fry and Libby Davies.

While White emphasized abstinence and treatment as his preferred strategy,
Davies and Fry spoke emphatically in favour of harm-reduction measures such
as safe-injection sites and clinical heroin trials -- two separate projects
that are often confused with each other.

The heroin trial is a scientific experiment to be conducted in Toronto,
Vancouver and Montreal under the auspices of the Canadian Institutes of
Health Research that will involve giving heroin to a very select group of
people who are long-term heroin addicts and who have been unsuccessful with
other forms of treatment including at least two tries at methadone
substitution.

The NAOMI trial, as it's called (for North American Opiate Medications
Initiative), is meant to study whether prescription heroin offers any
advantages over methadone in terms of treating long-term, intractable
users. Locally, the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS , headed by Dr.
Michael O'Shaughnessy, is spearheading the Vancouver part of the trial.

The other often-debated harm-reduction strategy, using safe-injection
sites, is a public-health measure being promoted by many health advocates.
It would involve providing addicts, who would still have to obtain their
own illegal drugs, with a consumption facility where they would be provided
with sterile equipment, medical care, and counselling, if they wanted it,
on detox and treatment options. Several groups in Vancouver are planning to
apply to open injection sites as soon as Health Canada finalizes guidelines
for their operation at the end of the month.

"Harm reduction is about saving lives so that people can go into
treatment," said Davies.

White, however, repeatedly emphasized that neither he nor his party, the
Canadian Alliance, supports measures like safe-injection sites or the
clinical heroin trial, calling them "harm extension" not harm reduction. He
said there are better ways to deal with addiction.

Davies countered that, "if there are better ways, we haven't seen them. The
status quo is a failure."

The committee's interim report, which included 39 recommendations, is one
more boost to the momentum for a national drug strategy that includes
harm-reduction measures that have been tried in Europe.

Harm reduction is the strategy that Vancouver advocated in the last few
years under former mayor Philip Owen.

Like Vancouver's strategy, the committee's recommendations also included
many suggestions for improvements in prevention, education,
information-gathering, treatment, and enforcement. Among the other
recommendations were suggestions that:

- - A national survey be conducted regularly to assess drug use.

- - Prevention and education programs be developed.

- - A wider range of sentencing options be provided, including treatment, for
addicts in jails

- - More resources be dedicated for drug detection at borders.

- - The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse be given a bigger budget and used
to help develop policy and research priorities.

- - A strategy be developed to deal with the misuse of legal,
over-the-counter or prescription drugs.

As usual, much of the public attention -- as it has been with Vancouver's
drug strategy -- was on the harm-reduction measures and the debate between
those who say harm reduction only fosters prolonged drug use and those who
say it is necessary because it helps reduce disease, prevent death, and
encourages addicts who aren't yet ready to quit to make contact with the
health-care system.

Canada's stance on harm reduction is likely to be the subject of some
attention from the U.S., which has maintained a fairly aggressive "war on
drugs" approach. U.S. drug czar John Walters even took the trouble to pay a
visit to Vancouver last month and give a talk about the dangers of pursuing
a harm-reduction approach to drug addiction, saying Baltimore had tried it
and suffered an economic decline, higher rates of high-school drop-outs,
and other social ills as a consequence.

But Davies said she hopes that the national drug strategy that Canada
develops, using the committees recommendations, will "show the U.S. that
there are real alternatives."

"This strategy is a lot more realistic. And if the Americans don't like,
it, tough."